''Boarding House Blues'' is a 1948 American musical

race film The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for African American, black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race ...

directed by Josh Binney which featured the first starring film role by Moms Mabley. It was the penultimate

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

of All-American News, a company that made

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...

s about black Americans.

Premise

Mom ( Moms Mabley) runs a

boarding house A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...

for struggling entertainers,''On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy'' by Mel Watkins, Chicago Review Press, 1999. similar to the situation decades earlier when Mabley had lived in a boarding house for black entertainers in Buffalo, New York.''Icons of African American Comedy'' by Eddie Tafoya, ABC-CLIO, 2011, page 20. When the boarding house is threatened with closure and all the tenants evicted due to non-payments, everyone gets together to put on a show to raise the money needed to save Mom and their home. The plot functions as a showcase for performance and comedy sketches and in the end enough money is raised to fend off the landlord.

Legacy

The film was the first starring role for Mabley and showcased her "

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

-circuit comedy and captured her signature stances and expressions." The film was also one of the early iterations of Mabley's "Moms" persona. In 1994, the

National Film Theatre BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the United Kingdom, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Ins ...

in London featured the film in their "A Separate Cinema" season, which focused on the pioneers of black cinema in the United States."Homage to films noirs: David Robinson selects highlights from an NFT season celebrating the Pioneers of black American cinema"

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

, pp. 37, issue. 64952, 1994. The film was cited as an example of "subversive" low budget black cinema in the 1940s. In 2022, the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...

showed the film as part of the institute's "NYC's Postwar Film Renaissance" series.

Cast

* Moms Mabley as Moms *

Dusty Fletcher Clinton "Dusty" Fletcher (July 8, 1900 – March 15, 1954) was an African-American vaudeville performer and comedian, who was best known for the comedy routine which became a hit record in 1947, "Open the Door, Richard". Routine "Open the Door ...

as Dusty * Marcellus Wilson as Jerry * Marie Cooke as Lila Foster * Augustus Smith as Norman Norman * John D. Lee Jr. as Stanley * Emory Richardson as Simon * Harold Cromer as Moofty * Sidney Easton as Boo Boo * Freddie Robinson as Freddie *John 'Spider Bruce' Mason as Boarders (with "company") * John Riano as Steggy (the ape) *

Lucky Millinder Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder (August 8, 1910 – September 28, 1966) was an American swing music, swing and rhythm and blues, rhythm-and-blues bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang ...

as himself (bandleader) *

Una Mae Carlisle Una Mae Carlisle (December 26, 1915 – November 7, 1956) was an American jazz singer, pianist, and songwriter. Early life Carlisle was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the daughter of Mellie and Edward Carlisle. She was of African and Native America ...

as herself (singer) *

Bull Moose Jackson Benjamin Clarence "Bull Moose" Jackson (April 22, 1919 – July 31, 1989) Allmusic biography Accessed January 2008. was an American blues and rhythm-and-blues singer and saxophonist, who was most successful in the late 1940s. He is considered ...

as himself (singer) *Warren Berry as One of Berry Brothers *Nyas Berry as One of Berry Brothers * Anistine Allen as herself (singer) * Paul Breckenridge as himself (singer) *James Cross as Stump of Stump and Stumpy * Eddie Hartman as Stumpy of Stump and Stumpy * Lee Norman as themselves * 'Crip' Heard as himself (one-legged dancer) * Edgar Martin as Joe

Soundtrack

*John Mason and Company – "Gimme" *The Berry Brothers – "You'll Never Know" (Written by

Harry Warren Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna; December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981) was an American composer and the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song ...

, lyrics by

Mack Gordon Mack Gordon (born Morris Gittler; June 21, 1904 – February 28, 1959) was an American lyricist for the stage and film. He was nominated for the best original song Oscar nine times in 11 years, including five consecutive years between 1940 and 1 ...

) *Una Mae Carlisle – "Throw It out of Your Mind" (Written by

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and

Billy Kyle William Osborne Kyle (July 14, 1914 – February 23, 1966) was an American jazz pianist. He is perhaps best known as an accompanist. Biography Kyle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. He began playing the piano in school and ...

) *Una Mae Carlisle – "It Ain't Like That" (Written by Hot Lips Page) * Stump and Stumpy – "We've Got Rhythm to Spare" *Paul Breckenridge with Lucky Millinder band "We Slumber" *Anistine Allen with Lucky Millinder band – "Let It Roll" *Bull Moose Jackson with Lucky Millinder band – "Yes I Do"

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boarding House Blues 1948 films American black-and-white films 1948 musical films Race films African-American musical films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films Films about landlords English-language musical films